HONG KONG (TheBlaze/AP) — Nearly a full day after it began, the anti-government protests ravaging Hong Kong are still going strong.

Police used tear gas on Sunday to try to clear thousands of pro-democracy protesters who had gathered outside government headquarters in a challenge to Beijing over its decision to restrict democratic reforms for the city.

After spending hours holding the protesters at bay, police lobbed canisters of tear gas into the crowd on Sunday evening. The searing fumes sent protesters fleeing down the road, but many came right back to continue their demonstration.

Watch the protests live below:

Students and activists have been camped out on the streets outside the government complex all weekend. Students started the rally, but by early Sunday leaders of the broader Occupy Central civil disobedience movement said they were joining them to kick-start a long-threatened mass sit-in to demand an election for Hong Kong’s leader without Beijing’s interference.

Authorities launched their crackdown after the protest spiraled into an extraordinary scene of chaos as the protesters jammed a busy road and clashed with officers wielding pepper spray.

The protesters were trying tried to reach a mass sit-in being held outside government headquarters to demand Beijing grant genuine democratic reforms to the former British colony.

The demonstrations — which Beijing called “illegal” — were a rare scene of disorder in the Asian financial hub, and highlighted authorities’ inability to get a grip on the public discontent over Beijing’s tightening grip on the city. The protesters reject Beijing’s recent decision to restrict voting reforms for the first-ever elections to choose Hong Kong’s leader, promised for 2017.

Earlier Sunday, thousands of protesters who tried to join the sit-in breached a police cordon, spilling out onto a busy highway and causing traffic to come to a standstill.

Police officers in a buffer zone manned barricades and doused the protesters with pepper spray carried in backpacks. The demonstrators, who tried at one point to rip apart metal barricades, carried umbrellas to deflect the spray by the police, who were wearing helmets and respirators.

Police had told those involved in what they also call an illegal gathering to leave the scene as soon as possible, warning that otherwise they would begin to clear the area and make arrests.

The use of the tear gas angered the protesters, who chanted “Shame on C.Y. Leung” after it was used, referring to the city’s deeply unpopular Beijing-backed leader, Leung Chun-ying. To many, it also seemed to mark a major shift for Hong Kong, whose residents have long felt their city stood apart from mainland China thanks to its guaranteed civil liberties and separate legal and financial systems.

Hong Kong “has changed to a new era so the people have to be awakened. It’s no longer the old Hong Kong,” said one protester, W.T. Chung, 46, who yelled at police officers after they used tear gas.

Earlier, police said they had arrested 78 people since demonstrations started late Friday, though all but three were released.

Leung said Hong Kong’s government was “resolute in opposing the unlawful occupation” of the government offices or the financial district by Occupy Central.

“The police are determined to handle the situation appropriately in accordance with the law,” he said at a news conference.

The Chinese government agency that handles Hong Kong affairs condemned the protests.

“China’s central government firmly opposes illegal acts taking place in Hong Kong,” and fully supports the local government in handling the matter according to the law, the official Xinhua News Agency quoted the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office of the State Council as saying.

Protest organizers said police took away several pro-democracy legislators who were among the demonstrators.

Among the protesters was media magnate Jimmy Lai, who owns the popular Apple Daily, Hong Kong’s sole pro-democracy newspaper.

“We are living in a strange civilization. Our minds and souls are so overlaid with fear, with artificiality, that often we do not even recognize beauty. It is this fear, this lack of direct vision of truth that brings about all the disaster the world holds, and how little opportunity we give any people for casting off fear, for living simply and naturally. When they do, first of all we fear them, then we condemn them. It is only if they are great enough to outlive our condemnation that we accept them.” –Henri, Robert. Collected by Margery Ryerson. The Art Spirit. Philadelphia, 1923.

The above quote strikes deeply within my heart. I found it in the following essential book for any home library: [VandenBroeck, Goldian, ed. Less is More: An Anthology of Ancient & Modern Voices Raised in Praise of Simplicity. Foreward by E. F. Schumacher (Author of Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered. 1973.). Inner Traditions: Rochester, Vermont, 1978, 1996. p. 219.].

The beauty or the fear of simplicity. How the right and left of our civilization have seemingly forever feared the beauty of simplicity!

Artist, Robert Henri’s quote resonates so strongly alongside the following quote by economist and philosopher F. A. Hayak, whose birthday (although he has long passed) was three days ago:

“There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal. While the first is the condition of a free society, the second means as DeTocqueville describes it, ‘a new form of servitude.'” –Hayek, Freidrich August. Individualism and Economic Order. 1948.

“In the negative part of Professor Hayek’s thesis there is a great deal of truth. It cannot be said too often – at any rate, it is not being said nearly often enough – that collectivism is not inherently democratic, but on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamed of.” –Orwell, George. 1944. Writing in response to Hayek’s book: The Road to Serfdom (1944)”.

Author of the classic dystopian novels 1984 (1949) and Animal Farm (1945), Orwell was no fan of capitalism and yet he found it within himself to step away from partisanship to pen the above, historically-informed forewarning.

Please note Keynes’ inclusion of the word “practical.” Both the right and left have seemingly forever criticized as an impractical (and unregulated) ideal the simplicity of “treating people equally” as opposed to just making everyone equal (regulated).

One example that comes to mind is the issue of who should fund the caring of the present multitude of those who are unable to work and create income. One side argues that the government should stay out of it and that community programs should oversee the need. The other side calls this impractical because, likely, community programs won’t be able to fund or handle the load. The poor will instead get shuffled off under bridges, to the gutters and into the back alleys.

Is it a matter of practicality? Is it true that citizen-funded community programs can’t or won’t handle the load? Is a governmental equalization and regulation of incomes or subsidies the only solution?

Attempting to make people equal is collectivism, as Orwell calls it, which he then describes as “not inherently democratic” but “tyranical,” worse so even than historically imposed by the merciless Spanish Inquisitors.

Please also note how artist Robert Henri and economist F. A. Hayek seem to resonate in the above quotes. Economist Robert Maynard Keynes and artist Robert Henri, on the other hand, do not seem to me to resonate at all. Art synonymous with simplicity? Art in opposition to practicality?

How many times has a creatively-gifted student pursuing a degree in writing been told by parents that such a degree would not be practical? How many such students have listened to such regulatory and collectivist advice? Where would our world be without gifted writers on the left, the right and all points in between?

Hmmm, based on the insights from the above quote from Orwell, I wonder if he had parents like those mentioned above, and if so, chose instead to pursue his gift as a writer?

I learned from an influencial person in my life that if I place my palm against another’s and push, that is a difficult, forceful and stressful path that leads to anxiety, fear and artificiality. If I place my palm against another’s and relax, let go of pushing, then that is a stress-free way of simplicity, non-tension. A natural equality. The two palms can exist alongside without either pushing at the other, and they can get by on their own. Too simple?

Allowing people to empower themselves toward their own pursuits, allowing a free society–whether to live modestly according to one’s meager means or affluently, left or right, craftsman or entrepreneur–whatever, is the simple way of beauty–the beautiful way of simplicity. An ideal? Yes. So what. Impractical? No.

In a football game, the kicker doesn’t aim at the goal post but beyond it. He may not make 100 percent of the attempted distance, but 80 or 90 percent may put the ball over the post–a score. 100 percent is a goal likely never to be achieved. It is a utopian ideal, impractical. Don’t confuse that with a score.

The ideals of libertarianism, most fully realized in the aims of Ron Paul, are not to hit an idealistic 100 percent, I don’t believe, but to hit as close as possible. The goal is to score a realistic and beautiful win.

Of course, the kick is only as good as the kicker. Players’ records speak loudest on who to place one’s trust in.

In speaking of progressivism, the object is to progress. The art of football is to progress down the field to a score, to progress in scoring to a win and to progress in winning to take the beautiful Super Bowl. If you lose, you come back again. You make progress. The art is not, however, to progress in injuring the other team’s players to the point of taking them out of the game, or to bypass the rules.

The most obvious and current example that comes to mind is President Obama’s push to the Supreme Court of what has come to be known as “Obamacare.” By most accounts, the court (now considering the case) will ultimately block his attempt at a “score.” Why? Because it directly conflicts with our constitutional guarantees for a right to choose our individual pursuits. The president is attempting to push aside the Constitution along with all those who oppose him–to bypass the refs and the rule book. Maybe the refs will turn a blind eye, and he’ll score. Likely he won’t.

For myself, I choose not affluence but a more simple life. Who am I to shove it down my affluent neighbor’s throat that his choice is wrong, and that I aim to not only make him swallow it but to kill affluence altogether and ultimately to make her or him enjoy the experience?

Creating a “green” planet” by killing off affluence and consumption are separate concepts, to raise another example. The first is admirable for all to work towards. It takes cooperation and compromise to reign in the real dangers of out-of-control consumption.

The second is social engineering for the sake of “making people equal”–a power grab; a purely and politically partisan imposition on OUR equality through nature–“our,” meaning ALL–right and left, Black and White, male and female, gay and straight, spiritual or atheist, simple or affluent. It’s the equivalent of saying: “I’m right and you’re wrong.” “I’m smart and you’re stupid.” “I’m elite, and you’re of a lower class.” Servitude.

By the nature of equality and free will, no one person or group has a right to impose their ideals on any other person. Simple?

I encourage all to read this, regardless of interest or disinterest in the issues of religious freedom, freedom in general, religion in general, healthcare, sexual freedom, sex in general, privacy, civil disobedience or whether government should act as protector or director of freedoms. Why? Simply because it’s invasive to all (non-American citizens as well) at some level. In other words, if it’s not in your face already, it will be.

At the very least, it adds to the correction of any misconception that the Catholic Church has no influence in today’s world. It does, and even when not understood on a common-citizen level, it’s understood almost unanimously on national and international levels. The Church has been, is and will continue to be a major player on our world’s “chessboard.” And, they’re not going away. President Obama may be jousting with them at the moment, but he knows it as well.

If you’re a person of any conviction, ranging from no conviction at all (a conviction in itself) to a monk in a monastery, this present match concerns your life at a much higher level. Are you a person who wants to be left alone without anyone telling you what you can or can’t do with your life (outside of crimes against property, person, government, etc.)? Or, are you a person who is fine with ceding some, many or all of your freedoms to the government as a director and even enforcer of freedoms custom-fitted for all citizens by a majority vote of citizens?

In a constitutional republic, which is still what we live in within America, the government protects all freedoms without creating / directing / enforcing them upon a minority. When you’re an equal people, there can be no minority. It’s only within a democracy, where majority rules over the lives of a minority, that you will find our inherent equality-by-nature of whites, Blacks, women, men, religious, atheist or otherwise trumped by a custom-fitted nature for all.

In this specific match between the Church and President Obama, the president is not acting as an equal-by-nature protector of a constitutional republic where religious freedoms (including those of no convictions) are defended equally. He’s not even acting as a protector of sexual freedoms when trying to establish one policy that applies to all, regardless of one’s beliefs, religious or otherwise. He is acting from out of a form of social democracy where he very clearly seeks to direct “the many” of all citizens along “the one” same path — ultimately, with no variance allowed.

Whether you’re in the majority or minority (where you’ll least like it), you’ll be affected. If you think you’ll wind up in the majority for every issue close to your heart, think again.

This is a letter from the recently promoted Timothy Cardinal Dolan, formerly Archbishop of New York, to all of the bishops of the Catholic Church, dated March 2, 2012. I’ve given the link at the bottom for a copy of the entire letter, with his signature included. For this blog, I’ve condensed the letter to its most directly stated points, and I’ve highlighted in bold the “boldest” of bold statements from the new Cardinal. Then, I’ve underlined the words and statements, in my view, to taken most seriously. If nothing else, please view the highlights.

As a side note, if there’s one thing, for me, that has led to the present and growing disconnect between parish-level Catholics and the Church heirarchy, it’s that the Bishops, Archbishops and Cardinals (who do most of the letter-writing and “attempted” communicating that finds its way to the street-level parishioners) have no sense whatsoever (meaning, none) of “street language,” so to speak. They tend to talk and write like they’re still in the first century Church of Peter or Paul.

I’ve purposely excised as much as possible of that in my below condensation simply because I believe that communication is a bridge between one and another (including those at a street level like me). I truly want an inclusive “all” to understand the Cardinal’s argument. Take a peek at the original document, and you’ll see what I’m getting at. In all fairness, though, the Cardinal addressed the letter to fellow Cardinals, but I still say they need to talk “to” the people instead of “down to” them to encourage a much needed healing of the widening disconnect. –SB

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) March 2, 2012:

I have written you to express my gratitude for our unity in faith and action as we move forward to protect our religious freedom from unprecedented intrusion from a government bureau, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

. . . we as a body have had opportunities during our past plenary assemblies to manifest our strong unity in defense of religious freedom.

Since January 20, when the final, restrictive HHS Rule was first announced, we have become certain of two things: religious freedom is under attack, and we will not cease our struggle to protect it.

Benedict XVI . . . “Of particular concern are certain attempts being made to limit that most cherished of American freedoms, the freedom of religion.”

Bishop Stephen Blaire and Bishop William Lori, with so many others, have admirably kept us focused on this one priority of protecting religious freedom. We have made it clear in no uncertain terms to the government that we are not at peace with its invasive attempt to curtail the religious freedom we cherish as Catholics and Americans. We did not ask for this fight, but we will not run from it.

. . . each of us would prefer to spend our energy engaged in and promoting the works of mercy to which the Church is dedicated: healing the sick, teaching our youth, and helping the poor. . . . each of the ministries entrusted to us by Jesus is now in jeopardy due to this bureaucratic intrusion into the internal life of the church. . . . we were doing those extensive and noble works rather well without these radical new constrictive and forbidding mandates.

Our Church has a long tradition of effective partnership with government and the wider community in the service of the sick, our children, our elders, and the poor at home and abroad, and we sure hope to continue it.

. . . this is not a “Catholic” fight alone. . . . to quote . . . a nurse who emailed me, “I’m not so much mad about all this as a Catholic, but as an American.” . . . Governor Mike Huckabee, observed, “In this matter, we’re all Catholics.”

. . . We are grateful to know so many of our fellow Americans . . . stand together in this important moment in our country. They know that this is not just about sterilization, abortifacients, and chemical contraception. It’s about religious freedom, the sacred right of any Church to define its own teaching and ministry.

When the President announced on January 20th that the choking mandates from HHS would remain, not only we bishops and our Catholic faithful, but people of every faith, or none at all, rallied in protest. The worry that we had expressed — that such government control was contrary to our deepest political values — was eloquently articulated by constitutional scholars and leaders of every creed.

On February 10th, the President announced that the insurance providers would have to pay the bill, instead of the Church’s schools, hospitals, clinics, or vast network of charitable outreach having to do so. He considered this “concession” adequate. Did this help? . . . while withholding final judgment, we would certainly give the President’s proposal close scrutiny. . . . we did — and as you know, we are as worried as ever.

For one, there was not even a nod to the deeper concerns about trespassing upon religious freedom, or of modifying the HHS’ attempt to define the how and who of our ministry.

Two, since a big part of our ministries are “self-insured,” we still ask how this protects us. We’ll still have to pay and, in addition to that, we’ll still have to maintain in our policies practices which our Church has consistently taught are grave wrongs in which we cannot participate.

And what about forcing individual believers to pay for what violates their religious freedom and conscience? We can’t abandon the hard working person of faith who has a right to religiousfreedom.

And three, there was still no resolution about the handcuffs placed upon renowned Catholic charitable agencies, both national and international, and their exclusion from contracts just because they will not refer victims of human trafficking, immigrants and refugees, and the hungry of the world, for abortions, sterilization, or contraception. In many ways, the announcement of February 10 solved little and complicated a lot. We now have more questions than answers, more confusion than clarity.

What to do now?

For one . . . we will continue our strong efforts of advocacy and education. In the coming weeks the Conference will continue to provide you, among other things, with catechetical resources on the significance of religious freedom to the Church and the Church’s teaching on it from a doctrinal and moral perspective. We are developing liturgical aids to encourage prayer in our efforts and plans on how we can continue to voice our public and strong opposition to this infringement on our freedom. And the Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty, that has served the Conference so well in its short lifespan, will continue its extraordinary work in service to this important cause.

Two, we will ardently continue to seek a rescinding of the suffocating mandates that require us to violate our moral convictions, or at least insist upon a much wider latitude to the exemptions so that churches can be free of the new, rigidly narrow definition of church, minister and ministry that would prevent us from helping those in need, educating children and healing the sick, no matter their religion.

In this regard, the President invited us to “work out the wrinkles.” We have accepted that invitation. Unfortunately, this seems to be stalled: the White House Press Secretary, for instance, informed the nation that the mandates are a fait accompli (and, embarrassingly for him, commented that we bishops have always opposed Health Care anyway, a charge that is scurrilous and insulting, not to mention flat out wrong. . . .)

The White House already notified Congress that the dreaded mandates are now published in the Federal Registry “without change.” The Secretary of HHS is widely quoted as saying, “Religious insurance companies don’t really design the plans they sell based on their own religious tenets.” That doesn’t bode well for their getting a truly acceptable “accommodation.”

At a recent meeting between staff of the bishops’ conference and the White House staff, our staff members asked directly whether the broader concerns of religious freedom—that is, revisiting the straight-jacketing mandates, or broadening the maligned exemption—are all off the table. They were informed that they are. So much for “working out the wrinkles.”

Instead, they advised the bishops’ conference that we should listen to the “enlightened” voices of accommodation, such as the recent, hardly surprising yet terribly unfortunate editorial in America [prominent Jesuit publication]. The White House seems to think we bishops simply do not know or understand Catholic teaching and so, taking a cue from its own definition of religious freedom, now has nominated its own handpicked official Catholic teachers.

We will continue to accept invitations to meet with and to voice our concerns to anyone of any party, for this is hardly partisan, who is willing to correct the infringements on religious freedomthat we are now under. But as we do so, we cannot rely on off the record promises offixes without deadlines and without assurances of proposals that will concretely address theconcerns in a manner that does not conflict with our principles and teaching.

Congress might provide more hope, since thoughtful elected officials have proposed legislation to protect what should be so obvious: religious freedom. Meanwhile, in our recent debate in the senate, our opponents sought to obscure what is really a religious freedom issue by maintaining that abortion inducing drugs and the like are a “woman’s health issue.” We will not let this deception stand.

Our commitment to seeking legislative remedies remains strong. And it is about remedies to the assault on religious freedom. Period.

(By the way, the Church hardly needs to be lectured about health care for women. Thanks mostly to our Sisters, the Church is the largest private provider of health care for women and their babies in the country.)

Bishop William Lori, Chairman of our Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty, stated it well in a recent press release: “We will build on this base of support as we pursue legislation in the House of Representatives, urge the Administration to change its course on this issue, and explore our legal rights under the Constitution and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”

In the recent Hosanna-Tabor ruling, the Supreme Court unanimously defended the right of a Church to define its own ministry and services, a dramatic rebuff to the administration, apparently unheeded by the White House. Thus, our bishops’ conference, many individual religious entities, and other people of good will are working with some top-notch law firms who feel so strongly about this that they will represent us pro-bono. In the upcoming days, you will hear much more about this encouraging and welcome development.

Given this climate, we have to prepare for tough times. Some, like Americamagazine, want us to cave-in and stop fighting, saying this is simply a policy issue; some want us to close everything down rather than comply (In an excellent article, Cardinal Francis George wrote that the administration apparently wants us to “give up for Lent” our schools, hospitals, and charitable ministries); some, like Bishop Robert Lynch wisely noted, wonder whether we might have to engage in civil disobedience and risk steep fines; some worry that we’ll have to face a decision between two ethically repugnant choices: subsidizing immoral services or no longer offering insurance coverage, a road none of us wants to travel.

. . . we know so very well that religious freedom is our heritage, our legacy and our firm belief, both as loyal Catholics and Americans. There have been many threats to religious freedomover the decades and years, but these often came from without.

This one sadly comes from within.

As our ancestors did with previous threats, we will tirelessly defend the timeless and enduring truth of religious freedom.

Following on my last post, I’d like to add a condensed version of my understanding of the Constitution. The people of Wyoming are considered sovereigns, as all Americans are, which means that the people are the source of power in America.

The terms laws of natureand nature’s God are stated at the beginning of the Declaration of Independence. The Latin word for nature is birth. We are by nature born equal. All men are created equalmeans just that.

of we i sing --SB 2010

Lincoln, in the Lincoln-Douglas debates explained it this way: He argued that when you look at a Black person and a White person, they appear different. But when you look at a Black person and a White person and a hog, it’s self-evident that the two people of different colors are equal in nature, each different in nature only from the hog. The equality of our nature is shown by what nature it is not equal to.

If one wants to argue that hogs are made of atoms and people are made of atoms, therefore people and hogs are equal by nature, I would say that we’re not establishing a government of hogs but of people. The Constitution applies to governance of people by our own nature. Would a hog even agree to being governed? 🙂

Because all persons are equal in nature, no White can own a Black and no king (like King George at the time of the American Revolution) can rule over the people. This also excludes a person of “privilege” of any kind from ruling over an equal people. This is at the heart of why America declared independence from King George and then created a Constitution upon the two principles of nature and equalityand governance by representation, separation of powersand limited government.

equal in nature --SB 2011

A republic was set up in America and not a democracy. A democracy allows a majority to rule over a minority. A republic allows the people, as sovereigns, to hold the source of power. The people then give their consent, as a whole and equal people, to their representative government who are separated in powerin order to prevent the hoarding of power by any branch or executive.

The government is limited in power to securing and protecting the interests of our equal people, not to invading our lives with REGULATIONS as to what we can do, what we can’t do, when we can or can’t do it, how we can or can’t do it or where we can or can’t do it and to expand SURVEILLANCE everywhere to catch what we’re doing or not doing.

suspicious eyes --SB 2011

These rules only make ENFORCEMENT of the rules even more invasive. If we break one of these thousands and thousands of rules, then we lose our property, our savings, our good names and we likely go to JAIL (and how difficult would that be with rules against everything?). Where’s the liberty and freedom to follow our dreams in this scenario?

dream --SB 2010

Lincoln also stated: “Free labor argues that, as the Author of man makes every individual with one head and one pair of hands, it was probably intended that heads and hands should cooperate as friends; and that that particular head, should direct and control that particular pair of hands. As each man has one mouth to be fed, and one pair of hands to furnish food, it was probably intended that that particular pair of hands should feed that particular mouth — that each head is the natural guardian, director, and protector of the hands and mouth inseparably connected with it; and that being so, every head should be cultivated, and improved, by whatever will add to its capacity for performing its charge. In one word Free Labor depends on universal education.”

Simply put, Lincoln says that universal education allows the head to place food into the hands which in turn place the food into the mouth. People are equal and should and can educate themselves, with a representative government simply there to protect their right to govern their own bodies and lives — liberty.

When I hear so much today of the heads being chopped off in Mexico (thousands of them) and other countries, including the U.S., I imagine that it’s not just a matter of these madmen ending their victims’ lives, but it’s also a matter of separating the governing force of their bodies. In ending their lives, they’re ending their independence. When people want to take our ability to govern ourselves away from us and lord a government over us, it’s a similar thing. Metaphorically, our heads as sovereigns are being chopped off.

hop-head to hand to mouth --SB 2011

James Madison rightly stated that if men were angels, there would be no need for government. Men are equal in nature to each other but not to the nature of angels or of hogs. Therefore, government is necessary, balanced and limited so as to prevent “non-angels” from tyranny over the people.

angelic hop-head --SB 2011

Those who oppose a constitutional republic do so on the basis that history is a process of change and CIRCUMSTANCE. They argue that times have changed, therefore our governmental process must also change with whatever circumstances we find ourselves in.

They argue that scientists and AUTHORITIES are more capable of making governmental decisions than are the everyday people of America. This implies that people are not, in fact, equal. It implies that there is a privileged class of experts or ELITE who are more capable of managing power than an equal or sovereign people who are equal in nature.

edge of elite heights & lowlands --SB 2011

If people are, in fact, equal in nature, then it follows that no person or persons can be above another person. If that is true, then a republic is the best system of government for preserving our nature and equality.

It can only be true that a republic is not the best system if it is also true that all people are not equal by nature, as the people of the first choice have to believe by desiring the rule of an elite, specialized class over a LOWER CLASS.

One either believes that we are equal, or they don’t.

In the next election, there is one CHOICE that matters above all. Do we want to revise or abolish our Constitution according to changes of circumstances in our history, or do we CHOOSE to keep our constitutional republic which has worked so well for 236 years to keep power in the hands of the people with a balance of powers to keep “non-angels” from imposing tyranny over a people who are equal in nature by race, religion, sexual orientationor otherwise. Our constitutional government has worked for 236 years but is in a clear and tangible danger today.

U.S. Constitution

I believe that we are equal and that no person or persons have a right to lord power over the people. I believe that we can, in fact, educate ourselves to govern ourselves — liberty.

There is only one presidential candidate who has consistently held the above view, and that is Ron Paul. President Obama desires a governmental elite class with a BUREAUCRATIC, ADMINISTRATIVE government over the people, and the other three remaining Republican candidates: Romney, Santorum and Gingrich desire a capitalistic/corporate/industrial military complex ELITE government over the people.

Ron Paul has consistently fought for a simple, limited and representative government with balanced powers and sovereign citizens who “own” the source of power in our country. He wants AGRESSION against other countries only when that country represents a direct threat to our country, not whenever we decide to impose democracies in other countries.

How odd it is to me when we attempt to impose democracies in other countries when our own government is a republic. For me, this is proof that the center left and center right, who have governed seemingly forever, desire a majority rule over the minority, throughout the world, clearly indicating that they do not believe in equality of mankindby their nature. This is because a people who are equal by nature do not impose governing over other countries as if the people of those countries were not also equal to us by nature.

If they want to kill us, then we have a right to kill them before they succeed in the job, but not otherwise. Personally, I would have our friends across the border, the drug lords, vaporized. If they are a threat to any of an equal people, as they have shown they are, then they are a threat to the rest of an equal people.